


Never Hit The Ground

by Tricochet



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/F, Slow Burn, secret agent AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-20 13:52:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 15,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12434202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tricochet/pseuds/Tricochet
Summary: Agent Canary is assigned to a new team, despite her supervisor's worries about her recklessness. Her supervisor, Agent Sharpe, has always done things by the book, but knows that that approach might not work forever. The two have to learn to get along - and somehow, they fall for each other.





	1. Prologue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AvaLance secret agent au fic! Hopefully will update at least once a week.

"Canary's an asset."

"She could jeopardize the whole operation!" Ava objects.

"We need someone who can make decisions."

"But what happens when she makes the wrong decision and goes too far?" 

"I'll be assigning you, Agent Sharpe, to her team to prevent that from happening."

 

Sara gets back to the telephone company that's a cover for her base. She's fully expecting an earful about her violation of protocol in her decision to save a civilian at the risk of exposing her identity.

"Canary!" her boss yells, and Sara sighs.

"Yes?" 

"Sir," he prompts. Sara ignores him.

"What have you got for me?" she asks, looking at the file he's holding and reaching for it.

"Hold on, Canary. This isn't your assignment. You're being promoted."

"Huh?"

"I said you could be more use making your own orders versus receiving them. You'll still be in the field with a team, just making the plans. You don't have an assignment right now, just get to know them. My bosses think you're a loose cannon, Canary, and I pulled a few favors for this. Don't screw it up. This file has what you need to know about your new team and your new station. Your plane leaves in five hours."

Sara is stunned. "Okay. Thank you, sir."

She takes the file and stashes it in her briefcase. She excuses herself to get her arm looked at.

"It'll be okay," the facility's doctor says. "It'll need a few days to recover from getting hit with a piece of grenade."

"Thank you," Sara says. 

"I heard you're leaving."

"Word travels that fast, huh?"

"I'll miss you, Agent. Even if I always had to pull shrapnel and bullets out of your chest."

"Thank you, doc."

"Don't die without me, Agent."

"I won't," Sara promises. 

She says goodbye to the few agents she'd actually been close with and takes her pre-packed travel bag. 

 

Ava watches her on the camera and sighs. 

"I still think this is a bad idea," she says. 

"Right now, we don't need someone who can follow rules. We need someone who can break them."


	2. I.

Sara finds her new base by chance. Of course they wouldn't just tell her the address, they had to give her a GPS device that beeped when she got closer. After a few hours of it leading her in circles, she sits down in an Arby's and strikes the device on the table in frustration. The table lights up with a message.

"Go upstairs," it reads in the patented font her agency always uses. Sara waits for her food before obeying. If the agency can wait long enough to watch her wander around, they can wait for her to get her food.

She pays and starts heading for the stairs.

"Ma'am, do you know where you're going?" an employee asks.

"Yes," she says. "I'm guessing you're aware that your empty second floor isn't empty."

The employee doesn't give her any trouble.

Sara finds a locked door and knocks. Nobody opens it, but she can hear noise from the other side, so she kicks it down.

Sara looks at the people sitting at the table and steps through the door.

"You Canary?" one of them yells.

"Uh, yeah," Sara says, keeping her voice down. "Can the Arby's hear us?"

"Probably, but they don't care. They stay out of the way and make great sandwiches. Think we're the mob."

"Alright," Sara says, a little suspicious of a restaurant willing to house people they thought were mob employees. "What are your codenames?"

"I'm Firestorm 1. This fellow here is 2. Atom, Vixen, Cold, and Steel are over there. I don't even care to know where Heat Wave is right now."

"Okay, Firestorm 1. Do you know what our mission together will be?"

"No."

"Okay. Neither do I. They wanted us to do some team building shit, but I'd really rather go do something right now. Do you know where the local mob or something hides out?"

"Uh, we can track them down. That's not exactly our mission here and if we're exposed..." one of the Firestorms says.

"Think we can pull it off?" Sara asks, less if a question than an order.

"Hell yeah!" one of the others says.

Atom starts tracking them with files their agency has collected over time until it generates a location.

"Alright! We have an address that... is at an old shut-down water park," Sara says. "That must be their base."

"It's not," Atom says. "It's where they're performing a transaction tonight. It's the best I could get."

"It'll work," Sara says. "Let's get this show on the road, shall we?"

"We'll need to split up. Steel and Atom will investigate the scene and plant a few cameras. Firestorms, I need you to wait and sabotage their getaway vehicles. Cold and me will make the attack. Vixen, I need you to wait out and give us directions and call for backup if we need it. We won't, but it won't hurt. If Heat Wave shows up, he can join us."

"Aw, can't I blow something up myself for once?" Steel whines.

"No," Vixen says. "You know how that went last time. Should I stay here, Canary?"

"Uh, come with us to the scene. Just stay in the van there."

Captain Cold fake-salutes. Steel goes to change into civilian clothes from his pajamas. Sara taps her foot.

 

 

Ava sighs as she watches the team she's assigned to through cameras. She was right about how rash they are. The first thing Canary does on the assignment is pick a fight with the mob. The rest of the team seems to like her enough, though. They'll work well together. They're all the same sort of reckless with a side of moral. Ava just hopes it's enough.


	3. II.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains mentions of violence and involves police and mafia. It also mentions drugs, although the drugs aren't used.

"Okay. Steel, Atom, go!" Vixen says. Her voice is quiet but forceful enough to make Sara trust her more already. 

Atom starts moving. He's stealthy for a man of his build. He completes a sweep around the north and east sides of the waterpark. Steel heads the other direction. 

"Clear so far," Steel says. "Just-wait, didn't Atom say the park is closed?"

"It is closed," Vixen says through the comms.

"Huh. Why's the concessions patio open with a candle lit?"

"Sounds worth checking out," Sara tells him. 

Steel agrees. Sara can hear soft footsteps through the headpiece.

"Okay, yep. Someone's there. It's not a candle, it's a cigar. The man just put it out. I think his partner told him he'd be noticed. Uh, I'm walking behind them now, and it looks like they have automatic rifles. Either they're here to protect the trade or take it down."

"A rival?" Captain Cold suggests.

"Huh. Could be someone else trying to take the product. Or a vigilante. From the unprofessionalism, I'd say not police."

"Okay. Steel, stay on them. Atom, keep looking around. Plant a few cams," Sara orders. 

"Yes ma'am," Atom says. 

The cameras flicker online and Sara stares. 

"Uh, is that a timer?"

She points to a glow on the corner of the screen. 

"That's a bomb," the younger Firestorm very helpfully points out. 

"Atom!" Sara whispers. "Explosive at your eleven o' clock. Do you see it?"

"Yes," Atom replies unconvincingly. "Oh! Well, I didn't before, but I do now."

"Yeah, can you do anything about that?"

"Yep, could you put Jax on the line?"

"Who?"

"Me," says the younger Firestorm, taking the microphone and starting to speak into it. 

Sara opens a different communications line to talk to Steel.

"How's it going?" 

"One of them just said that the deal's been moved up. We have ten minutes."

"Okay. Firestorms, move out. Wait for the vehicles, and wait for the people to exit and I'll signal. Then just pop their tires. Don't blow it up, just delay them. If they don't get out, wait for my signal anyway. Cold, we need to be ready to go after them."

The Firestorms each grab a knife and step into the darkness. 

"Steel, take out the guards and get back here."

Sara hears a grunt and two thunks. 

"That was nonlethal, right?" she asks.

"Aw yeah," Steel says. They'll be fine. Also, Mick, uh, Heatwave just decided to show up. He didn't use lethal force either. Not that he didn't want to."

"Okay," Sara says. "Take their guns and stash them somewhere you'll remember. They'll be evidence. Can you find any sort of identification?"

One of them starts patting the men down. 

"Got something here," a strange man who must be Heatwave grunts. "Weed. I'd say taken from his employer on other runs."

"Okay, well, neither of you touch it. That's evidence too."

"There are cars pulling up," Atom reports. 

Sara hands the mic to Vixen and steps out with Cold. 

Vixen's voice comes through her earpiece. "Space yourselves around the perimeter. Stay hidden. The cams suggest another party arriving now."

"Roger that," Sara says. 

"Okay. The two people are shaking hands now. Doing the whole show the money, show the substance. Now they're switching."

"Move!" Sara says. Each of the Firestorms go after one of the sides. Sara is the first to leap at the perpetrators. 

She ducks under one of them to flip his handgun back into the sky and throw it out of sight. Heatwave punches the man and he falls back. Captain Cold fires some kind of weapon at two others. The Firestorms and Atom are hanging back in case anyone tries to get away. Steel steps in and throws a man over his shoulder. Sara throws the last one down with his face in the dust. 

"Call the police and report a deal gone wrong," Sara says. 

The man Sara had just subdued laughs. "You're calling the police? As if they don't know?"

"Can you cancel that?" Sara asks. 

"Too late. They're on their way."

"Is it true, what he said?" Sara asks.

"We've had our suspicions for long enough. Looks like they're taking a cut, though."

"Get back to our vehicle, guys," Sara says. "They're not going to try to run. Heatwave, with me."

She waits for the police to arrive, pushing Heatwave out of sight. 

"I saw this going on while I was on a hike."

"Did you attack them by yourself?" an older officer asks. 

"Yeah."

"Next time, just wait for us, young lady."

Sara detects something very patronizing in the officer's tone.

"Next time? Does this happen a lot?"

"You new here?" the officer jokes. "Yeah, there's nothing to be done about it. We try our best, but it's a losing battle."

Sara looks to where Heatwave is hiding and hopes there's some reality to his name and what she's heard about him blowing up stuff?"

She covers her mouth so the officers can't see her lips move and whispers into her mic. "Heatwave, can you set the stash on fire and get out of here?"

He doesn't respond, but the bag starts smoldering.

"Put it out!" one of the policemen yells. 

Heatwave appears next to Sara and starts moving.

"Hey!" someone yells after them. "You're witnesses! And that's tampering with evidence!"

Sara and Heatwave get back into their vehicle.

"Well, its day one for me here, and we've already stopped a drug deal. Even though they got away, we managed to piss of both the mafia and the local police. Nice job, gang," Sara says. "And we also know that there was a bomb planted there. Someone else wanted it to go wrong."

 

 

Agent Ava Sharpe sighs loudly and complains to nobody in particular. "They just set fire to a stash of marijuana in front of the police. They have all the subtlety of someone who smoked twice what they burned. It's Day 1 and they've already made enemies of the most important parties in their base. They're going to get their cover blown and then I'll be better off without worrying about them!"

She types out a coded message and gets ready to put it through several shell corporations and notes. Agent Canary had better slow down whatever she's doing. 

"Slow down," her message reads. She presses send.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a little while since I updated, but here's the next chapter! I think it's going to be a true slow burn and take a few more chapters to get Sara and Ava to meet and many more after that for the main antagonist to show up, so good luck to you reading and me writing. Also, I've never set fire to a stash of drugs before, so I don't know if the science in it is accurate.


	4. III.

Sara turns on the news in the tiny TV screen in the headquarters.

"Stash of burned drugs discovered by civilian," the headline reads. Sara snorts. 

"We are on the news," Sara tells the members of her team.

Vixen is the only one who sounds remotely concerned. "From last night? Is there any video from body cams?"

"Nope," Sara says. "They must have quote-unquote 'malfunctioned' as they were trying to get the drugs to a safe location."

"So what do you think our big mission is going to be?" Steel asks.

"What?" Cold says.

"Our big mission. We've gotta have some kind of big thing we're going here. Think- they got us all together here. They must have something big planned. You barely ever see this many agents working together."

"True," Heatwave says. 

"I bet it's either a mafia thing, police ops, or some kind of computer mess. Possibly a rogue AI or aliens," Steel says.

"I think aliens are taking it a bit far," Sara says. "But yeah, something's going on. It's not our job to guess what, but my money's on the dirty cops."

"Hmm, sounds promising. Pity there's no database on crime," Firestorm Junior says. 

"The police?" Vixen suggests. 

Firestorm cringes. "Yeah, that was me trying to joke, because the police definitely do have a stash of information."

"Undercover?" Sara asks, and Cold nods. 

"Okay, so we'll need two agents, one to play the good cop and one to do bad cop. Who here looks most like a bad cop?"

"Heatwave," several agents say at once.

"Alright. And good cop?"

"I'd say you, to be honest," Vixen says. 

"Alright. So, normally it takes a while to become a police officer, but I know a shortcut. So, my first day will be tomorrow. Heatwave will start the Friday after," Sara says. "I'm going to be assembling my resumé and refreshing my memory on the laws here. Also, I have a question I probably can't legally know the answer to."

Vixen nods. The older Firestorm inclines his head.

"How long have you all been a team?" Sara asks.

"A few weeks. We were assigned a different leader, but he fell through. You're not that much of a new kid," Vixen assures her.

"Okay," Sara says, then goes back to thinking about the mission. "So even if we aren't assigned to the dirty cops, it'll still be good to get info on them."

"We can work on that," the young Firestorm says. 

"You can go patrol the streets, make sure nothing's going on. That's what we've been doing," Captain Cold says. 

"Alright," Sara says, feeling a little like they're just trying to get away from her. She does a little research and puts on civilian clothes. She doesn't have a plan for the day stalking beyond around the side of town the police seem to be avoiding, but she's getting restless. Now that she knows what's up with them, she knows that there's a reason they won't go into a certain area. It's probably something they're choosing to ignore so they can get a cut. 

The printer beeps suddenly, just as Sara is getting ready to leave, and Sara draws her weapons before it even starts printing. She relaxes as she sees what the source of the noise was, but Atom frowns. 

"I told you guys to not print things without consulting me so we can make them untraceable," he says. 

"I didn't print it, did you print it?" Firestorm Junior asks around. 

"Look at the page," Sara says. "Canary and Co, stay out of trouble. Do not go picking fights that aren't included in your orders. If we can see you, so can they."

Sara looks around like she's expecting to find the camera. 

"They must be looking at our computer searches," Vixen says.

"Who? Command?" Heatwave asks.

"The people watching. That must be why we got flagged."

"But I proofed the network so only our agency has access to our search history," Atom says. He's frowning. 

"Maybe that's just it. We could be after a mole," Sara says. 

"What do they want, then?" Steel asks. He's pretty clearly frustrated. 

"I don't know. Either way, I'm going to head out. I'll be careful, though," Sara says. She's overenunciating every word, trying to make it clear to any listeners that she's not going to ruin everything. She climbs down the Arby's stairs and walks along the streets. She is aware of everything around her, and runs in circles and through alleys so anyone following her would be off her trail. 

Sara takes a stroll to the area on the west of the city. It's shockingly suburban and calm.

"You sure this is the place?" she asks into her comms.

"Yep, should be. A few years ago, police calls dropped to almost zero. The police don't get around here much."

"I'd expect they wouldn't. There's so many rich people living here.

"There aren't, actually. Most of these houses are marked as vacant."

"Then that would also explain why police don't come. Nobody to call," Heatwave says, breaking in the audio from nowhere. 

"Except there are people here. They don't look suburban, though. They're driving cheap cars and wearing heavy-duty working clothes. Something isn't right here," Sara says. 

"Hey!" a pretty dark-haired woman wearing a police uniform calls. "Are you the one who's been lurking outside these citizens' homes?"

"I just got here. Uh, I was wondering if any of them are for sale." Sara lies.

"No," the woman snaps. Sara follows the line of the woman's microphone wire in her shirt and how she carries her gun. 

"And you are?" Sara asks.

"Officer Emme Pointe. This neighborhood isn't for the likes of you," she says. "Not when you're illegally loitering."

"What? I'm standing fine."

"I'll let you off if you turn out your pockets and leave now."

Sara is glad that she stashed her weapons in her boot that morning. She produces a handful of lint, her phone, a bandage, a tiny set of binoculars, a Swiss Army knife, and a breath mint. 

Pointe takes them and looks them over, flipping the knife open and shut without discovering any of its hidden functions. She hands the items back and shakes the lint off in the trash.

"Be careful," Pointe says. 

Sara nods and walks away. 

"Yeah, Atom, you get all that? I'd say that woman is government. Possibly even our department."

"Yep, just checked and there's no Officer Emme Pointe," Atom says. 

"She didn't even disguise herself well," Sara says. "That was like, a not-so-subtle message that her agency doesn't want us here. My guess is a power play."

"What was with the whole searching you thing, then?" Steel says, apparently listening in too.

"One possibility is that it was a field test, designed to make sure you're not being careless," Firestorm Senior says. 

"Why is everyone listening in?" Sara asks. 

"We got a message from Command. Our first official order came through," Cold says.

"And you didn't tell me because?" Sara prompts.

"We're already on our way to pick you up. We just grabbed the suitcase you had last night and a gun. Hope that's enough," Heatwave says. Sara can't tell if he's joking. 

"Alright. Where should I meet you?" Sara asks.

 

 

Agent Ava Sharpe watches Agent Lance run out of sight. The woman had been quick on her feet, Ava would give her that. She clearly knew what she was doing and had recognized Ava as someone beyond just a suburban policewoman. Sara would have to be back later, of course, but it was going to be a while before she knew enough. If Ava ever deemed her capable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a month since I posted the first chapter of this! I know it's not progressing very quickly, but I have a general idea for the main plot. I'm also busy with another WIP that I'm trying to post all at once rather than in chapters, so once I'm done with that, I should be able to update this fic more!


	5. IV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some violence and peril in this chapter. It's no worse than anything the show has done, though.

"You ready for our first official team operation?" Sara calls.

Some of the others whoop. 

"Okay, we're not starting out easy. We've got to secure a risk area around a weak point in a transatlantic cable and take out whoever's after it. So, you ready for a field trip?"

"Can't we take a jet?" Steel whines.

"It's, like, an hour drive away!" Atom says. "C'mon, maybe we can find a money laundering op to expose on the way there."

Steel nods like a kid who has been promised a toy. Sara doesn't point out that they were given strict instructions to not cause any trouble.

"I've got a vehicle and some equipment lined up," Vixen says. "Also, Steel, I brought your fidget spinner."

Cold volunteers to drive. The younger Firestorm sits in the back and starts singing before they even make it to the highway. Vixen motions for Sara to not say anything, and the singing Firestorm is asleep two verses in.

"Do you kids want to play a game?" Firestorm Senior suggests.

"We're not that young. We're adults. We're, you know, secret agents," Atom says, whispering the last sentence.

"One of you sang that awful beer song until he passed out, another hasn't looked away from a fidget spinner for the whole ride, and two more of you have been playing the cardboard license plate state thing," Sara points out. 

"Admittedly, yes," the awake Firestorm says. 

Sara tunes out the rest of the conversation. She's focused on something else- the lump she'd noticed in your pocket. 

She reaches down and finds something that certainly doesn't belong. It's a watch, and it displays a message as Sara looks at it. 

"This machine is a prototype for an advanced artificial intelligence system. Do not inform anyone of its capabilities. It can also be used to communicate with-"

Sara squints at the tiny writing, trying to make out what's next. Before she can read it, it glitches and displays large red text.

"CANARY," it reads. Sara stares at it. It must have been that woman claiming to be Officer Pointe that left her with it. Sara doesn't know why it has an artificial intelligence or why it showed her codename. The mission must be even more secret than she thought.

"We're here," Cold says. Sara must have gotten lost thinking about the watch.

"Okay. I'll take a team by the cable. Vixen, you take the others and guard the perimeter."

"Uh, I just picked up an alert that there's an active bomb detected. And this says that it was detonated just as soon as we arrived. I don't think the cable was the target. I think we are," Atom says. 

"You mean it's a trap?" Heatwave yells. "What are we waiting for? Let's leave!"

"No," Sara says. "Whoever set this trap knows us. They'll be able to get us wherever we go. We need to find out what's happening here."

"So whoever's giving us the orders..." Firestorm the Elder starts.

"Is the one who wants us dead. I'm going to go down there," Sara says. "You can come with me or you can leave."

Nobody moves. Sara starts running into the building. She has the security system down in seconds and shoves the door open. She's aware of the others all following behind her as she follows the building plans she'd received to the basement and scrabbles at the door. The security system to the basement is much more sophisticated than the one to enter the building. Sara can't crack it, which is unusual and rather suspicious. Firestorm the Younger tells everyone to stand back and blows the door down with an explosive.

The cable is exposed, and Sara can tell that something's wrong. Even if she hadn't seen the bloodstains or noticed the badly hidden bomb in a vent, the person lying on the floor was a dead giveaway.

Or a living giveaway, Sara hopes. Vixen runs over to the woman and lifts her up.

"What happened?" Vixen asks her.

"I... my division's gone," the woman says, clinging onto Vixen. "They were all here, but then they just weren't. I woke up here with a bomb. I think I dug a little too deep."

Atom and both of the Firestorms are trying to deactivate the bomb. 

"Can you deactivate it?" Captain Cold asks.

"Do we have time to get out?" Steel says. "There's nobody else here, and nothing we can do."

"No and no, but I think I can delay it so we can escape. It's at two minutes, but if I just-"

Something crackles and one of them swear. 

"There! We've got five minutes. Better run," Firestorm Junior says. 

The woman in Vixen's arms holds onto her. Sara nods and they all take off. The blueprint doesn't seem as simple now that she's navigating it backwards with a bomb behind her. 

"T- 30 seconds," Sara's watch reads, and Sara leads her comrades into a bunker and slams the lock. 

The building shakes, and Vixen almost drops her passenger. Sara waits for a minute before she opens the door again and runs. 

They head back into the car with a much more somber mood than before. 

Sara tells Cold to turn on a deserted road. She steps out of the car, leaving her phone, watch, and comms. She instructs the others to do the same and meet her outside.

She tells the team about the watch and the woman they had found stands up shakily, holding onto Vixen's hand.

"Uh, hi. I'm Zari, codename Z. My whole division just disappeared overnight. I was supposed to report to the agency for reassignment, but I'd been investigating what my division had been doing. Someone powerful at the agency's behind it. You can't trust their orders. You have to lay low. Make sure only your direct bosses know that you're alive."

"What do you think happened to your agency?"

"They collectively ran away, they were eliminated by an outside force, or they were eliminated from within the agency. I'm leaning toward Option 3."

 

 

Ava stares in frustration at the screen and growls. It's showing the same view of the inside of Agent Canary's car it has for half an hour. 

"We need to go to the higher-ups about this," she tells her partner. "Whatever's going on, they and Agent Z are out of line. We have to handle it the bureaucratic way. And what was with that watch you had me plant on Canary?"

"It saved all of their lives," her partner says. "And I'm handling it perfectly fine."

"You had better be right about that, Hunter," Ava tells him. "They're totally unpredictable."

"They know what they're doing," Rip says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plot thickens... and now I kinda know what I'll be doing for the plot. I've never written Rip or Zari before, but I hope I'm doing okay.


	6. V.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note that Sara hooks up with someone (who is not Ava) in this chapter

"We already have another mission," Sara says as soon as they get back to the base. "I guess this wasn't enough. Uh, they want us to take down a target. It looks like some young woman called Helen. They haven't said why they want her dead. I think only four of us have to go. She's not far."

Heatwave groans and takes a swig of something. “Well, I’m not going,” he says.

This time, one of the Firestorms gets in the driver's seat. 

"Okay, looks like she lives in an apartment with two cats. Her neighbors might notice if we all show up with guns, so Atom, you take down the security cams. Steel and I are going to pretend to be friendly visitors. Firestorm Junior, would you drive? We might need you to drive off quickly."

"Oh, uh, you can just call me Jax if it's easier," the agent says. Sara is relieved. It’s probably a breach of protocol, but it would make her life easier.

"Okay. The rest of you, stay here. Vixen, would you try to figure out what happened to Z?"

Vixen smiles and takes the woman's arm. 

Jax is a pretty good driver, and they show up at the woman's apartment building. He stays in the car in case they have to make a quick getaway.

Steel, Atom, and Sara walk inside. The colorful coats they're wearing make them look less like secret agents. 

They wait until the person at the desk is changing. Atom rips a whole cable out. It's not elegant, but it'll work. 

Sara insists on climbing the stairs to avoid elevator accidents or sabotages. Steel complains the whole three stories up.

They find the door and hear yelling from behind it. Sara motions to Steel, and they break through it.

Their target is standing with her back to the far wall, yelling. Two men are pointing rifles at her. They are all staring at the shattered door. The cats are nowhere to be seen.

"It's our bounty!" one of the men yells, firing a shot at Steel. Steel dodges without trouble. The target takes the opportunity to duck away and hide. 

Sara runs at them, twisting to bounce off the wall and hit one of them in the center of the chest with her boot. He falls backward. Sara uses the rest of her momentum to strike the other man's arm with her hand. She twists his wrist backward and forces his face onto the ground. 

"Who's paying the bounty?" Sara asks quietly.

"I don't know! Some agency, maybe," Steel speculates. 

"Oh. I was asking, our friend over here," Sara says. 

"I don't know! I just heard about it on the net!" the man tells her. Sara sighs and hands him a bundle of cash.

"Consider it paid. Split it how you want. But you didn't see anything, alright?"

"Okay," the man says. He helps the other bounty hunter up and they both run. 

"Alright," Sara says. "Let's take the target and go."

"Target?!" Helen yells. "I didn't even do anything! I work at a nonprofit animal shelter!"

"Did you maybe see something you weren't supposed to? Witness a crime?" Sara asks. 

"No!" she says. 

"May I see your phone?" Sara asks. 

"Also no!" 

"Okay. Do you have a computer I could use, then?"

Helen sighs. "Fine."

Sara types in the first news website she thinks of and shows her the screen. 

"Oh my god," Helen says. "It blew up. I drove past that place to work every day for years."

"Last time you were there, did you see anything suspicious?" Sara asks. 

"Maybe, actually. I didn't notice it at the time, but there were a bunch of people running out of it."

"What did they look like?" Sara keeps questioning her. 

"Like regular office workers, I guess. I just thought they were doing an evacuation drill or something."

"Did you get a look at any of them or notice any distinguishing characteristics?" Sara asks.

"Uh, not really. I got sidetracked by this weird drone thing that hit my car."

"Drone?" 

"Yeah. Looked like it was filming or something. I ran right over it."

"And you didn't think that was odd or worthy of calling the police for?"

"No. I didn't want to get in trouble for hitting it. I picked part of it off the bottom of my car and dumped it in the trash at a park."

Sara sighs. "Field trip time. Helen, you're coming along."

"What? How do you know my name?"

"We break into your home, pay off bounty hunters trying to kill you, ask about an explosion, and you want to know how we know your name?"

"Yes?" Helen says. "Also, was that real money you gave them?"

"Technically. I lifted it from a illegal trafficking organization."

"That could pay for so much cat food," Helen says.

"Tell you what, if you help us find out what's up with that building, we'll buy the whole pet supply store," Sara says.

"I guess that's my best option," Helen says. “But who is going to feed my cats? They’re shut in my bedroom.”

“I will make sure it happens,” Sara vows. “And I’ll have someone cover your shelter shift.”

Steel makes eye contact with Sara. "Aren't we supposed to, uh, you know, kill her?" he mouths.

Sara shrugs. "We need her right now."

"Okay," Steel says out loud. 

Helen looks confused. "Okay what?"

"Okay, let's go," Steel says.

Atom plugs the cable back in when the three of them return and doesn’t look twice at Helen. 

They jump into the van. Jax starts driving. 

“Where are we going?” Jax asks.

“Where’d you leave the drone?” Sara says to Helen.

“Uh... turn left. Then go straight for five blocks and left again.”

Jax goes with it, following Helen’s instructions. 

“We’ve got a tail,” Atom says, looking out the window. 

“I’m gonna change direction and pretend we don’t know they’re behind us,” Jax says, changing lanes gradually. “Try to make them think we’re heading uptown.”

“Good idea,” Sara says. Steel takes out a mirror and looks behind him at the people following.

“We have to hop on the boulevard. If you swerve left they’ll miss the turn and we can lose them.”

Jax swerves and changes direction, breaking traffic laws to follow Steel’s suggestion. The pursuers fall back. Jax pushes the pedal to the ground. Somebody honks in front of them.

Helen tells them to turn left. 

“There’s no road there,” Jax says.

“No, but it’s the quickest way to get through the park.”

Jax nods and drives on the sidewalk. Helen tells him when to stop.

Sara jumps out of the vehicle and starts digging through the garbage. Helen helps, looking mildly repulsed. Sara accidentally touches something squishy. Atom plugs his nose from inside the car.

“Got it,” Helen says, just as another car pulls up behind them and starts firing pellets. Steel takes a shot back at them. Helen and Sara cram back into the car. Jax takes off before they have their seat belts on.

“We gotta make sure we don’t lead them back to base,” Sara says. Another van with shaded windows follows their trail as soon as Jax bumps back into the parking lot and city roads.

Sara feels a shock as Jax rams the side of the vehicle against the van. It works well enough. Their pursuers slide back. Jax speeds away. 

“We gotta dump the ride,” Sara yells. Something inside the engine is backfiring loudly. 

“Where?” Jax yells, steering haphazardly. Sara thinks through everything she’s seen in the area.

“Trash compaction thing!” she remembers. “Two hundred yards, on the right.”

Jax pulls in. Sara grabs Helen and the drone piece and jumps out. Atom works to get the vehicle into the compactor. Steel helps Jax out. 

“Alright. What’s the nearest train station or something?” 

“Uh, there’s a subway a half mile away,” Atom says. 

“Are you sure you lost them?” Helen asks.

“Yes,” the Agents say together. 

“We know what we’re doing,” Sara tells her.

“Sure,” Helen says.

“We all have to change clothes,” Sara says. She drops her colored jacket and pulls her shirt off. Sara smirks a little as Helen stares at her back muscles. The others all turn away awkwardly. Steel is covering Atom’s eyes. 

Sara pulls on a new halter top and sunglasses. It’ll be enough to fool enemy agents and make her back look fabulous.

Helen clears her throat and asks Sara for something to change her appearance. Sara hands her a raincoat. 

“Alright, let’s go. Do they have a metal detector?” Sara asks.

“It’s out of order at the moment,” Steel says. 

“How did you- never mind. I’m going to take Helen to a safe house somewhere. You should go take the drone part somewhere, see if you can get anything out of it. Don’t bring it to base without checking for bugs. I will be back there when I can. And make sure someone feeds Helen’s cats,” Sara says. She takes Helen’s arm and walks to the station.

“I see you’ve watched a lot of action movies,” Sara says to her.

“Maybe,” Helen says.

“So I’m thinking once my team figures out what was on that drone camera, they’ll release it anonymously to the media and we will hear about it. Then whoever wants you dead won’t have a secret to keep any more and you’ll be okay. Until then, we just gotta lie low. I’ve got a safe house.”

“So you’re a spy?” Helen whispers.

“Maybe,” Sara says, eyeing Helen up. 

“Lady James Bond. Wow, that’s hot.”

“Thanks,” Sara says. “So now, this question is what we are going to do until then?” 

Helen is smirking at her, so Sara smirks back twice as hard. One of the perks of her job is the ladies.

 

 

 

“I’m turning the camera on Canary off for now,” Ava says.

“Why?” Agent Hunter asks. 

“Because she just disobeyed direct orders to eliminate a target. She has decided to protect the target at one of our safehouses. And not only that, she is making out with said target and I think they’re about to have sex, and I don’t need to see that kind of spit-in-the-face disobedience right now.”

“You’re just jealous,” Gary teases. 

“I just don’t want to be creepy right now. Creepy to Helen, I mean. I don’t care about Canary.”

“I mean, you’re jealous of how good Canary is with the ladies. You have to admit that she’d be a pretty good James Bond.”

“Did they even tell us why the target was marked for elimination?”

“Nothing specific. Something about participation in a crime.”

“But she was just a spectator,” Gary says.

“When you’re an agent, you can’t believe everything everyone tells you,” Ava points out. Hunter interrupts her and tells her to take a break outside.

“I think Gary is right,” Hunter says quietly. He and Ava are sitting on a bench.

“Huh?” Ava asks.

“Our orders are being given by an unreliable source. We can’t trust our superiors.”

“I’m sure they had their reasons,” Ava says. “And it’s not our job to question them. We just carry them out. And if we can’t trust our superiors, why should I listen to you?”

“Ava, I’m desperate. I need you to help me keep the team under our control.”

“I’m doing my best,” Ava says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy holidays everyone!!


	7. VI.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took a while to update, but I did it! I've mostly been posting one-shots and requests recently, but I have not abandoned this fic.

Sara puts on her police uniform and heads to her new undercover job. She leaves Helen in the safe house with a gun and tells Cold to watch her. 

“Officer Speare,” her new captain says. “Welcome to the Bomb Division. I’m Captain Fisher. You’re going to be working a case with another transfer cop and me. This is O’Connor.”

The other new guy is Heatwave. He does not look happy to be playing the part of bad cop.

“Okay, so we got an anonymous tip that there’s video footage of the explosion we’re working. Apparently they left it at a drop point. We gotta make sure we get to it. It might be a hot target. You ready to go?”

“Yeah,” Sara says.

“We’re taking two separate civilian cars to be less noticeable,” Fisher says. “Speare, you’re with me. O’Connor, take a separate car.”

Sara sits next to Fisher. He drives cautiously and checks for anyone other than ‘O’Connor’ following them.

“Okay. This could be a trap,” West says. “Stay back. I’m going to grab it.”

He kneels under the bench where it was left and retrieves a memory chip. 

“Huh. Looks a little damaged, but I think our tech people can handle it.”

Sara feels her wrist getting warm. She looks down at her watch and reads a message. “Get down.”

She ducks before the first gunshot. She has her gun out and is firing back immediately.

Heatwave is taking shots too from behind the cover of a tree. Fisher is holding the chip and using the bench as a shield.

“Requesting backup,” he says into his radio. “This is Captain Fisher at Star Park. Shots fired. Repeat, shots fired.”

Sara keeps shooting. She hears one of her opponents grunt as a bullet hits him. 

By the time the backup gets there, the shooters are gone. Fisher keeps holding the chip.

They drive back with their sirens on, in a hurry to analyse the chip. Sara studies Captain Fisher. He seems like a clean cop to Sara, one who wouldn’t hesitate to report any misdeeds within the ranks. But with the amount of crime and how many cops were involved in illegal operations, Sara can’t be sure.

The tech people look at the chip. Only Fisher is allowed to stay with them, so Sara finds some paperwork she has to finish. Heatwave is working too. 

"How’s it going, Officer Speare?” Heatwave tells her. He must have gotten bored.

“It’s good, O’Connor. Need something?”

“Wanted to check in. Make sure you’re doing alright.”

“That’s nice. No problems yet.”

“And we think Helen’s going to be safe now.”

Fisher steps out of the room and walks over to them.

“We got the footage. We’re going to release it to the news, see if anyone has more information.”

“Okay,” Sara says. “What was on it?”

“I don’t know yet. I mean, I looked through it, but it’s really hard to follow. It’d take a lot of time and creativity to tell what’s actually being shown.”

“Damn,” Heatwave says. “It’s gotta be important, though. Right?”

A tall man walks into the station. He’s wearing a nice suit and frowning.

“How’d you get in here?” Captain Fisher yells, his hand on his gun.

The man holds up a badge.

“What’s the NFW?” Fisher asks.

“That’s need to know information,” the man says. His nose is turned up like the detective isn’t worth a look.

“Yeah? Well, I need to know, if you’re going to be here.”

The man tries to get past him, but Heatwave steps in the way.

“What do you want?” Fisher asks.

“The footage taken from the drone.” 

“How do you even know about that?” Fisher says.

“Again, need-to-know.”

“And again, it’s my goddamn footage! You tell me what you’re going to be doing with it and why it’s important, or there’s no way I’m turning it over.”

Sara makes eye contact with Heatwave. He nods, and she takes it as a signal to go swipe the data from Fisher’s desk. The agent is too busy arguing to notice.

“You can’t legally restrict me from anything!” he yells to Fisher.

“You can’t legally expect me to do anything for you without knowing who you really are,” Fisher retorts back.

“Just give it to him. It’s not worth fighting over,” Sara says. Fisher glares at her, but Sara raises her eyebrow and hopes he gets the message. Fisher   
looks over his shoulder at the room that had until recently been holding the data. 

“Fine,” he says, showing the agent back. He looks at the table. 

“Huh. Doesn’t look like it’s here,” Fisher says. “What a shame.”

The agent lunges for him. Sara and Heatwave yank him back.

He runs. 

“Don’t bother going after him,” Fisher says. “I got a tracker stuck on his badge. Can I have the files?”

Sara hands the evidence over. 

“I’m going to release it now before anything else can happen,” Fisher says. 

“So what do we do when there’s no shootouts going on?” Heatwave asks.

“I could give you some more paperwork,” Fisher offers. Heatwave shudders.

 

 

“That is not a good idea,” Ava says.

“It’s the only way to keep an eye on them,” Hunter says. “If the NFW is really going rogue except for us, we need to be able to communicate with them directly.”

“I don’t like this. They may be incompetent, but they’re still going to figure you out eventually if you're pretending to be their police captain.”

“So far, they’ve been very competent.”

“They’re risking everything. They have no sense of authority!” Ava growls.

“Blindly following authority is what got some of our agents into this mess. We need them to trust morality over authority.”

“And what happens when we need to order them to shoot someone?”

“We’ll just have to tell them why.”


	8. VII.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for fire/explosions and peril in this one.

“So, looks like the explosion was deliberately set to destroy evidence. But what evidence would it have been?” Sara ponders.

“Canary, maybe you should rest,” Jax says. 

Sara stares at him. She’s probably been watching the duplicate she made of the camera footage over and over for far too long. 

“There’s got to be something here,” she says.

Zari takes a look at it. She runs the footage through some kind of filter, and Sara can see a reflection. Zari zooms in.

“I know this guy,” Zari says. “That’s my old boss. Fiacro Lorton. I always thought he was up to something.”

“I’ll see what Heatwave and I can dig up about him with the police,” Sara says.

“And I will see if I can find anything else on the internet. I’ll be somewhere else with an encrypted connection,” Zari says. 

“There’s another thing I need you to do.”

“Yeah?”

“Zari, I need you to figure out everything you can about the NFW. Somebody else, start compiling everything our superiors have ever said to us, everything we know about how they found us and where they worked, and where their other operatives are. Check the news for other known operatives of theirs or anything else that might have to do with them.”

“Don’t you mean have to do with us?” Steel says. Sara shakes her head.

“No. We’re on our own,” Sara says.

“Do we even know if there are any other operatives left?” Cold says. Sara shakes her head again. 

“We can’t be sure, but I think most of them have either gone corrupt or been eliminated by the corrupt ones.”

“Surely someone’s going to notice,” Atom says.

“No. We’re secret agents. Nobody’s supposed to notice us, so nobody will notice when we disappear.”

“Goddamit,” Atom swears.

“Occupational hazard, I guess,” Zari says.

“Do we know anything about another agent we could use to find them?” Sara asks.

“I know someone who was stationed in National City. He was undercover pretending to be the average run-of-the-mill vigilante, but he worked for the NFW,” Cold says.

“Field trip time?” Sara asks. 

“Martin and I can go,” Cold says. Sara frowns.

“Martin?” 

“Yes, that’s me,” the elder Firestorm says.

“Okay, so you and Cold can go do that. Vixen, Steel, keep looking over that footage. Jax and Atom, I have a list of possible front companies I’d like you to investigate on the down-low. Some of them might just be regular companies, but the vanished NFW branch might be working at one. You also might stumble on a money laundering or trafficking operation. If that happens, take some pictures as evidence and tell me so I can get the police on it. I’m going to be at the station.”

Sara drives to her job. Fisher is looking at the footage in the same way Sara had tried. He greets her with a nod.

“Do you want me to go poke around the explosion site, sir?” Sara asks.

“No. Whoever was there before it blew up might still be guarding it, and they clearly don’t want anyone snooping around.”

“Alright. What do you want me to do?”

“I have files of data on every recent explosion anywhere in the world with a close match to the composition of elements we found at the scene. I need you to go through them, see if any of them might have been the same bomber.”

Sara takes a look at the first file. She remembers that explosion in detail. She had been the one to find where the enemy base was, and she had given the signal to attack. 

Sara thumbs through some of the other files. She can immediately identify some of them as having been carried out by the NFW, but some she isn’t sure about.

“There’s another file I think you should pull,” Sara says. “I have a hunch.” 

“Yeah?” Fisher asks.

“The Wenlerbol explosion.”

“Wasn’t that ruled an accident?”

“Officially, yes. But it didn’t seem right.”

“I will look into it,” Fisher says. “Is there anything you can find that all the files have in common?”

“No,” Sara lies. She tries to think back to the hits she had been ordered to carry out and why she was given the order. It was all something about enemies of the state or terrorists. “I’m going to try to find some similarity between them.”

Once she plots each location on a map, Sara starts searching through logs of visitors to each of the exploded places. She groans when she can’t find anyone that overlaps. She’s fully aware that they could have used aliases, but either they had and there was no way for her to know who they were or they hadn’t, and there was still no way to know. Whatever the case, she can’t do anything.

She looks at the establishments’ bank and employment records and spots a name she recognizes in a list of employees. 

“Conrad Bestrin. That can’t be too common of a name,” Sara says to herself. Zari had listed about twenty of Fiacro’s old aliases, and Conrad was one of them. She searches through records on the man and finds a file. He’s clearly disguised, but it looks like Fiacro.

She searches up the other lawyers involved in the bombed places. They all lead back to the same few people. Sara prints out pictures and lists of aliases of each of them and starts looking deeper. She decides not to tell Fisher. 

Sara looks through legal records next. From what she can gather, the administrators of each target had given files to their legal advisors and lost the original files in the explosion. She wonders if she could get out of the country to look at the other explosions. She thinks through theories, but none of them seem to work.

“Any progress?” Fisher asks. Sara shakes her head. Her burner phone lights up with a text from Jax, and she steps out of the room to call him back.

“What have you got?”

“So far, money laundering and illegal drug distribution. But -”

Sara focuses, and she can hear screams through the speaker.

“The building’s going down! I think it-”

“Hang on. I’m on my way.”

She tells Fisher and Heatwave to jump in the car. Sara starts driving.

She finds the building in flames. Heatwave grins a little. She pretends not to notice Jax or the people in suits walking up. 

“I’m going to go in. See if there’s anyone in there,” she says, and gestures to Heatwave to follow. They dart through the building into a locked office. One of the drawers on the desk is partially open. Sara reaches in and grabs all the files she can.

“There are NFW agents outside,” she says to Heatwave. He shrugs.

“I figured that they wouldn’t follow us into a burning building. They’ll think we’re dead.”

“Aren’t we going to be?” Heatwave says gruffly. 

“Not if we get off the building. There’s a pole we could climb to.”

“Hell no!” 

“Uh, what about the roof over that waterpark?”

“There’s no way to get down from there.”

Sara looks out the window and sees the agents in suits surrounding the building.

 

“I don’t think we’ve got another option,” Sara says. She takes a running start and leaps. She lands on the roof, and her ankle twists. She grits her teeth and beckons Heatwave to follow. He shakes his head and jumps. She catches his hand and pulls him up.

“What now?” he asks. 

“We see what happens,” Sara says. She looks down and sees the suited agents forcing Fisher into a car. Their chances don’t look good with the rest of the team thinking they’re dead.

 

Ava doesn’t know why she’s crying. She hated monitoring Canary, who never made a decision without completely ignoring all reason. She had only met the woman once, and she was bound to get herself killed sooner or later. Hunter being captured wasn’t going to help anything either. 

She gets a phone call telling her to go outside. She grabs her gun and goes to the ringing payphone. 

“I don’t have long,” Rip says. “Canary and Heatwave survived. They’re on the roof of the pool.”

The phone hangs up, and Ava isn’t sure what to do. She can’t just leave the other agents to die, but if Hunter had been compromised, it could be a trap to catch Ava. Ava goes back to her computer and looks at the picture of Canary set as her background. 

She sighs and runs her hand through her hair.

“Gary, I’m going to be gone for a little while. Can you take care of everything until I get back?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been so busy with requests that I haven't been able to upload a chapter for a while, but here it is! My chapter!


	9. VIII.

Sara shivers. Her jacket isn’t enough for the wind on the roof. Her ankle is still hurting. She considers taking her jacket off to wrap it around her foot, but that would leave her torso cold.

“We’ve been up here for an hour,” Heatwave says. Sara checks her watch again, hoping it would display a useful message. All it says is ‘wait’.

“Do we have any options?”

Heatwave shakes his head.

Sara sees movement and looks over. 

“They’ve found us,” she whispers to Heatwave. The woman climbing onto the roof is clearly NFW. “You should go. You might make it.”

He shakes his head. 

The woman lifts a grappling hook over her shoulder and walks up to them. “Canary, Heatwave. It’s not a pleasure to see either of you.”

“What do you want?” Sara asks.

“I want to know what happened to the rest of the NFW. And you and your team are the best chance I have.”

“I remember you!” Sara says. “You said you were a police officer. Pointe. You gave me the phone.”

The woman doesn’t say anything. 

“What’s your code name?” Sara asks. 

“I don’t have one. I used to be your handler.”

“Handlers have code names too.”

“It was Legend,” she says. She bends down and wraps a bandage around Sara’s ankle. 

She crouches next to Sara. 

“You died tonight, do you understand? You’re gone. The NFW will never look for you again. The report will say that we found damaged remains in the wreckage. Canary will never be seen again.”

“I can’t leave my team,” Sara says.

“Canary is dead. You’re never going to show up as yourself on a camera again. You have two options. You could run away and be safe.”

“Or?”

“You could stay here and keep living the dangerous life trying to find out what happened to the NFW.”

“Yeah, I’m going to find a nice beach house in the country somewhere. I’ll hit a few banks on my way down,” Heatwave says.

“Well, I’m staying here,” Sara says.

“Okay. I have a safehouse the NFW doesn’t know about,” the woman says.

“How long have you been working on this?” Sara asks.

“Since you got transferred here. Heatwave, you with us or not?”

“What’s your name?” he asks. 

“Ava.”

He stares at her and takes a drink from a flask Sara didn’t know he was carrying. Ava’s eyebrows raise.

“I’m Mick.”

“Sara,” Sara says. “No ‘h’.”

“So, it’ll be safer for your teammates to think you’re dead. If one of them slips and reveals that you’re still alive or that there’s a mole, we’re over. Eventually, the NFW is going to come after all of them. We’ll deal with that when we can.”

“Can you protect them?” 

“Yes, I can,” Ava says. She throws the hook down. “Can- Sara, can you climb?”

Ava helps Sara to her feet. Sara tests her ankle and tries to take a step. It gives out under the weight, but Ava catches her. She supports Sara with both her arms so their torsos are pressed together. 

“Okay, so I’m thinking that if you can’t walk, there’s no way in hell you could climb right now. Do you mind if I carry you?”

“No,” Sara says. Ava drops a rope to the ground and picks Sara up. Sara folds her legs around Ava’s back and clings on to her with both hands.

Ava starts climbing down, and all Sara can do is focus on the warmth of Ava’s chest. They drop the last few feet. Ava is still holding Sara to her body.

Heatwave follows and lands next to them with a heavy thud. 

“Alright, we have to move,” Ava says. She runs, carrying Sara. Sara coughs a few times. Ava opens the door to a hotel room and sets Sara down on the bed.

“I’m going to need both of you to change all of your clothes. Anything you have on you right now could be trackable.”

Mick moves into the bathroom. Sara pulls her shirt over her head from the back and tosses it on the ground.

“This isn’t the usual naked rendezvous I have in hotel rooms with pretty ladies,” Sara says. Ava doesn’t seem to hear her. She’s looking the other way. 

“Can you help me?” Sara asks.

“What?”

“My ankle.”

Ava walks over and looks at it.

“What exactly do you want me to do?”

“I don’t want to try to pull my pants off over it.”

Ava produces a knife from behind her and cuts it off along the seams. 

“That works, I guess,” Sara says. “But I kinda have to go to the bathroom.”

Once Mick leaves the room, Ava helps Sara move into the bathroom and sit down.

“I’ll get you new clothes,” Ava says, excusing herself.

Ava comes back with underwear and exercise pants that are too long for Sara. She helps Sara stand up and pull them on. 

Sara asks Ava to hold her up, and Ava does. Sara unclasps her bra and looks at Ava over her bare shoulder. 

Ava doesn’t even seem bothered. She just hands Sara a change of tops.

Ava helps Sara step back out, and Ava starts running a metal detector over Sara’s body. 

“What are you doing?” Sara asks.

“Checking to make sure they didn’t chip you. I think you’re fine, though.”

Ava hands Sara and Mick new boots. They’re too big for Sara, but she doesn’t care. Ava wraps her in another jacket. 

“Where to now?” Sara asks.

“You’ll find out when we get there,” Ava says. She leads them into a tech building and scans her badge. She types in an elevator code, and they ride it down.

They step out. Everything seems to be locked, but Sara can tell that it must be sophisticated. 

Ava starts typing into a computer. She changes Sara’s hair and puts glasses and makeup on her.

“This new persona is Hannah Pike. She’s a country girl who just moved to the city and keeps getting lost.”

Mick resists Ava’s attempt to change his face with any kind of powder, but he lets her paint a mustache on him. 

“And you are now going to be Mark Cormac. You’re a plumber, so if you ever find yourself in a difficult situation, just say you’re there to fix the pipes.”

“You still going by Officer Pointe?” Sara asks.

“No, that’s why I turned my hair blonde again.”

“Hmm. It looks nice down,” Sara says. 

“So, what we have figured out is that most or all of the NFW is gone. The majority packed their bags and disappeared somewhere. They killed any of the ones they didn’t think would go along with it if they found out.”

“Do you know why?”

“No. We think the whole thing got paid off by a government, or they figured out some other way to profit.”

“Who would have enough cash to get a whole agency to commit treason and walk away?”

“That’s what I want to know.”

“Are you the only good agent left?” Sara asks. 

“Your team is okay. My division is mostly kept in the dark. Most of the coworkers I see are okay, I think. But it’s hard to tell.”

“How many people do you know for sure are good?”

“Me and my boss.”

“So you need us,” Sara says. She smiles a little and tilts her head.

“I know more than you,” Ava tells her.

 

Ava watches the footage from the street cameras. She scans for anyone who looks like Agent Hunter.

“What are you looking for?” Sara asks.

“Nothing,” Ava says. 

“When are we going to meet your boss?” 

“Not for a while,” Ava says. She finally sees the image she’d been hunting for. “But I know where they’ve taken him.”


	10. IX.

“Okay, remember your covers,” Ava whispers. “Hannah and Mark.”

“I don’t like this spelling of Hannah,” Sara whispers back.

“I don’t know why we have to be along for this dumb road trip,” Mick grumbles.

“I’m obeying orders. It would seem pretty suspicious if I suddenly stopped following commands,” Ava says.

“Yeah, but why do we have to be here?”

“Because I don’t trust either of you on your own,” Ava says. “Remember the plan?”

“Yeah,” Sara says. “You’re going to blow up something.”

“That was the plan, yes. However, plans change.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m going to take the cameras out just like I’m supposed to. I’m going to go in there, in disguise, obviously.”

“And then?” Sara says.

“Then, I see what I can learn about the people there and figure out who the target must be. I got exact orders of when to set the explosion off, so there has to be at least one target. It can’t be an attempt just to destroy the building, because it’s usually empty. Something has to be special about whoever is in there now. So I’m going to figure out who I’m supposed to blow up and you’re going to help me sneak them out of the building.”

“How are you going to figure out who they’re after?”

“I don’t know.”

“That plan doesn’t sound foolproof.”

“What alternatives do I have?”

“Just blowing the damn building up!” Mick suggests. Ava looks around and shushes him. 

“No, I’m not going to do that.”

“This seems pretty hopeless,” Sara says.

“Yeah, well, so’s everything else that’s happened since I joined this agency. I joined because I wanted to do good, but I think the NFW has worked to the opposite purpose. You understand why I have to do it.”

Sara nods and grips Ava’s hand. “Good luck, Agent.”

“Thank you,” Ava says, and walks away. 

“She’s gonna die,” Mick grunts.

“She’s going to be fine. She can handle herself.”

“You sound worried. Personally, I’m hoping she dies.”

Sara glares at Mick. He produces alcohol from seemingly nowhere and drinks. 

“You know how she wanted us to wait here?” Sara says. Mick is already standing up. Sara gets to her feet.

She follows Ava from a safe distance and watches her enter the building. She and Mick duck behind a rock so she doesn’t see them.

Sara circles around the building and lurks outside an open window. She waits for something to happen. She wishes she had Zari to hack into the security feeds so she could tell what’s happening. 

She hears a silenced gunshot and takes that as her cue to crash through the window and point a gun at someone threatening Ava. 

Ava isn’t anywhere near. Sara can tell that the man holding the gun isn’t NFW. She’d guess FBI, at a glance. 

He takes a shot at her, and Sara returns fire into his kneecap. She turns to the other person in the room. 

“I’m not helping you either!” he shouts to Sara. “I don’t care if you kill me or-”

Sara clamps her hand over his mouth. “Shut up, man! I don’t know what you know. Why was that agent trying to kill you?”

“I worked on the White Elephant program.”

“The what?” Sara asks. 

“That’s not what it’s called. But that’s what it’s going to be. It’s going to kill everyone. Z should never have-”

“Wait. You know Zari?”

“She was my boss. I don’t know what happened to her. I always figured they got her, but-”

The door busts down. Sara sees Ava. Ava sees her and glares.

“Agent, I told you to wait outside.”

“I know. I ignored you.”

“Well, there are about thirty agents outside. Not friendly ones.”

“Are you bleeding?” Sara says. She reaches out to touch the blood on Ava’s arm. Ava jerks her hand away. 

“What now?” Ava asks quietly. 

“We can hide here, or we can make a run for it.”

“If we stay here, do you think anybody else is going to try to blow us up?”

 

“Probably,” Sara admits. 

“It’s better than staying here,” Ava decides. 

The man gasps on the ground. He coughs and squirms. Sara stares down at him and kneels. 

She looks at him again and swears. “He’s been poisoned since before we got here. We don’t have a chance.”

He looks up at her and lets a little bit of blood dribble from his open mouth to the side of his face.

“It’s the white elephant. I never should have worked on it. It’s going to watch you and chase you. It’s going to follow every move you make and use its pawns to trample you-” 

He pauses to cough and spit more blood. Sara puts her foot on his chest, and he gasps again. His voice gets higher. 

“Z. I think she was coerced into it, but it got out of hand. It was never supposed to be-”

He spits, and Sara tries to push him upright. The blood is dripping all over his face and clothes. 

“What? What is it?” Sara demands. She touches the side of his face with her foot, and he doesn’t respond. 

“He’s gone. We need to leave,” Sara says. 

“How’d you get in?”

“Loose window,” Sara says. She jumps to the ground and starts running. Ava follows. Sara can feel and hear bullets around and behind them. Ava pauses for a second, and Sara wants to yell at her to keep moving. 

Ava knocks her down from behind, and Sara sees the building go down. 

“That’ll hold them for a while,” Ava says grimly. “Where’d Mick go?”

Sara sees something catch fire and sighs. “I know where he is.”

 

 

Ava walks into the Arby’s. She flashes a badge, and the employees laugh. 

“We don’t welcome your type of people here,” one of them says. Most of his teeth are falling out. Ava grimaces.

“Okay, I’ll just-”

A beefy customer blocks her exit. Ava reaches for her gun. 

The man falls back. The others look around. 

Ava runs upstairs. The door is open. 

“Agent Z,” she says to the woman.

“That’s me!” Zari says. 

Ava takes a step closer to her. “What was the White Elephant project?”

Zari looks around. Ava recognizes some of the other agents from her surveillance on Canary. 

“Look, not in-”

Ava interrupts her. “What was the White Elephant project?”

Zari sighs and looks down. “It’s an AI.”

“Like Siri?” Agent Steel offers.

“No. Like, a surveillance machine. The most effective agent. I was recruited to work on it.”

“Was it your idea?”

“No. They made me say it was my plan. They had my brother.”

Ava steps back. “None of this is my decision.”

Her phone chirps, and she answers it. “Now is not a good time, Gary. What-”

“I’m sorry, Ava.”

The door opens, and Gary is pointing a gun at her. 

“Gary! Put that down!” Ava yells. 

Gary shakes his head. “I can’t! I have orders! I can’t believe you’re a traitor, Ava!”

“Gary, calm down! I don’t know where you got that from!”

Gary waves and looks at his own phone. When he looks back up, his expression is completely different. He sets the gun down. 

“Well, Ava, looks like something’s changed. You are actually director now. Whoopsie-daisy!”

“What?” Ava says.

“Haha, yeah.”

“Who died and left you in charge?” Agent Steel jokes. Agent Palmer gives him a fist-bump. 

“Uh, the old director.”

“That guy. Okay.”

“I think you owe us some information,” Agent Cold says. “Part one - where are my…” 

He hesitates to think of a word.

“Coworkers?” Firestorm Junior suggests.

“Friends?” Firestorm Senior says.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Cold says. He perches on a desk. 

“I’ll explain everything. I promise,” Ava says. 

“Or I could,” Sara says. 

“I gave you orders to wait outside!” Ava complains. 

“I know. I just chose to ignore them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the people on my Tumblr who told me to work on my WIP! I hope you enjoyed!


	11. X.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some new character introductions and some background stuff that's low-key based on PoI, even though I'm still pissed about the BYG they pulled. It's so hard to juggle all of these characters.

“So you’re alive and were in hiding,” Cold summarizes. 

“Yeah. Now, Z, you have some explaining to do too,” Ava says.

Zari grabs a bucket.

“What’s that for?” Ava asks.

“Electronics. All of them. In here. Phones, drones, communicators, hearing aids, whatever.”

Sara sighs and surrenders a digital wristwatch. Ava tosses hers in too. Zari prods the rest of the agents until all their electronics are gone. 

Zari puts the bucket in the sink and turns the water on at full blast.

Gary squeaks. “My Pokemon!” 

Sara ignores him. 

“Okay. Now I can talk. Just for a little bit. White Elephant started out as a sort of watchdog safety program,” Zari explains. “That’s when I worked on it. Then it kept getting more advanced. I implemented a piece of test code to see if I could make it more reliable, and then boom. It could track money exchanges. I tried to undo it or lock it, and that’s when they took Behrad. They wanted to use it to keep the cash flow in their favor. I think that’s when it all started to go bad. They started taking out some other agents to keep it under wraps. I know at least one was assassinated for money. Most of the agency is corrupt now. White Elephant was supposed to improve our intelligence program, but it destroyed the NFW.”

“How do we know who’s clean?” Ava says. She seems remarkably calm to Sara. 

“That’s what we’ve been trying to figure out,” Zari says. “Most divisions are just missing, records erased. I really don’t know how many have been taken out of the system. I know a few that have been totally eliminated. The ones that are left are hard to tell.” 

“Eliminated as in…”

“Taken out.”

“Okay. As the new director, we’re going to stop all non-vital intelligence operations and change our focus. Gary, you’re in charge of regular operations. That means we’re suspending all regular agency activities relating to civilians and anyone outside this agency. There’s no way to save this organization. It’s going to be over. You just have to call everything off and transfer all of our responsibilities to another agency. Team, you’re with me. We'll debrief you later. You’re Legends now. Lance is still your leader, but she’s known as White Canary now.” 

“This is all so sudden,” Steel says. He’s standing by the door, pointing his gun down the stairs. 

“Yeah, well, we don’t have any time to lose. Every codename you remember, we’re looking them up. Agent Z, you restore anyone you can who has been deleted from the database. We track down every agent we can. Find the ones who are dead, and expose the ones who are in hiding. Kill them if you have to, but if you don’t, I’ll get our sister agencies to pick them up. We need them to talk.”

Zari is already typing. “The information has been almost totally erased. I’m going to have to find the backed up hard drives. It’s risky, but it’s the only chance we have of getting any of those files back.”

“Do it,” Ava says. “Do you have any idea where that hard drive could be located?”

“I know the exact address.”

Zari rattles it off, and Sara swears. “Ava and I were just there. No wonder we were ordered to blow it up.”

“Shit. Since we didn’t destroy it, they’ll be sending another team,” Ava says. “Agent Vixen, you’re with Agent Z. The rest of you are with White Canary and me.” She’s already stepping out with her hand on her gun. Sara follows. 

“You sure you wouldn’t rather spend some time alone with me?” Sara teases. Ava rolls her eyes, but her cheeks are a little redder. 

“Bad guys. First floor. Go,” Steel says, staring down the hall. 

“In this Arby’s?” Jax yells. He draws his gun too. 

Sara starts heading down the stairs. Ava follows, gesturing to the rest. 

Someone starts firing on them from behind a table. Ava shoots back. 

One of the waiters pulls a gun and shoots at Sara. Another one shoots him. 

“You’re NFW, right?” the waiter says. 

Sara stares at him. 

“Uh, I’m Kid Flash. I work with a different agency, and Hunter recruited me for this.” 

“Well, tell that son of a bitch to show his damn face and tell us what to do,” Ava yells over the gunfire. “We’re still being shot at.”

Wally takes a second gun out and starts firing with both hands. Mick covers him with the heat gun. Sara darts around the perimeter. Atom starts patting the rival agents down. 

"It's compromised. There's no way we'll be able to get the drive. We have to move," Zari yells. 

 

 

“Where are we going to go now?” Cold is asking. Zari shushes him. 

“We don’t say anything until the whole place is clean.”

“We’re in the middle of fuckin’ nowhere in a woodshed. Nobody’s got a mic on us,” Mick growls.

Zari finishes her scan and smashes the scanner with a hammer. 

“Okay. We’re ready.”

Ava turns to Kid Flash. “Did Hunter give you any messages?”

“He says to tell you that he escaped during the break-in. He’s trying to find the White Elephant servers. He says he thinks they’re somewhere underground in Arizona.” 

“Okay. If he’s found them, I’ll torch them.”

Zari sighs. “It’s not going to be that simple. It was designed to resist all attempts to disable or destroy it. Its facility is heavily guarded by machines. There’s no human guards who’ll make a mistake or take a bribe.”

Kid Flash looks sideways at her. “How does she know this?”

“I worked on White Elephant.” 

“You… okay. So you’re going to know better than anyone how to kill it.”

“Is there another way to repurpose it?” Sara says. “Teach it ethics or something?”

“It’d need better people than us for it to learn ethics,” Mick grunts. 

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever,” Ava tells him. “Can it be reprogrammed?”

“No. Well, not by a human,” Zari says.

“What the hell?” Kid Flash asks. “What else could reprogram it?”

“Itself. It can make decisions. I made it so it can make a choice to power down.”

“You gave it the ability to change its amount of control?” Ava yells. 

“Only down. It can shut itself off or restrict certain parts of its view and abilities.” 

“How do we make it do that?” Sara says. She puts an arm on Ava’s shoulder. Ava thinks it’s to keep her from yelling again. She shrugs it off. 

“We explain to it nicely how it’ll kill everything and destroy its world and hope it agrees.”

“So, shall we get on a plane to Arizona?”

“Yeah, but it might send people to kill us. That’s why we can only talk freely when it can’t hear us.”

“So it can tap into any electronic,” Steel says. 

“Yeah. If your phone’s on, it can hear you singing your 2000s pop songs in the shower. So, we have to make sure we don’t say or do anything suspicious anywhere within its range, including airports, planes, cars, and near a phone. So no calling each other by codenames or known aliases, mentioning White Elephant anywhere, or having weapons get noticed.”

“So we need to go to Arizona without it picking us up.”

“Yeah. We’ll need new IDs and covers, and we’ll have to travel in groups of two or three. It calculates an individual risk factor for each person, factoring in the reliability of the identification, how they act, and previous records for similar-looking people. If it detects too many in one place, it’ll investigate.”

“What, it’ll check everyone on the plane? Wouldn’t that take a long time?” Elder Firestorm wonders. 

“This is a supercomputer. It’d take a while to run manual checks, but it can check thousands of people in less than a second.”

“Holy shit,” Jax breathes. 

“Yeah. We’ll each have to travel in different ways and meet up there,” Zari says.

“I call Ava,” Sara says, winking at Ava. Ava rolls her eyes back.

“Okay. Anyone mind if I go with Amaya?” Zari asks. 

Ava stares. 

“Oh, that’s me,” Vixen says. Ava wonders how Zari learned Amaya’s name before she did. 

“Alright, no. We need teams, not middle-school style everybody picking a partner,” Ava steps in. “Heatwave, you’re one of our most deadly. I’m sending Cold with you to keep each other safe. You’re driving and taking the weapons. Firestorms, hate to say it, but you’re going to have to split up. It’ll be looking for the two of you together. Junior, you’re flying with Kid Flash. Elder, you’re going to have to babysit Steel and Atom. You three are going to be the first to arrive. You’ll to set up operations in Arizona. Vixen, Z, you’re going to take the train. Sara and I are going to be bussing part of the way and flying the rest. Any complaints?”

Firestorm Senior raises his hand.

“Overruled,” Ava says. “We’ll meet at the rendezvous point by Thursday.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm wondering if anybody is uhhhhh.... still reading this. I think this story is drawing to a close, but I'd rather know if anyone's enjoying it.


	12. XI.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update took a while to post, partly because it's a lot more sexual than I'm used to writing. It's not explicit but it's, uh, close, so be warned. There's also very little plot and a lot of tropes. 
> 
> I've also been outside a lot, because it's summer. I'm going to be gone for a few weeks at camps, but I'll get the next chapter up as soon as I can!

Sara watches Ava on the bus. Ava is doing a crossword, since they can’t do anything suspicious. Sara almost laughs at how Ava looks like she’s trying to look normal. 

“What’s SpongeBob’s nemesis?” Ava asks. “It ends in -TON.”

Sara stares at her. “Really?”

“What?”

“You don’t know?”

“No?”

“Plankton, Eloise. It’s Plankton.”

Ava frowns at the name Sara had picked for her. 

“Okay. Well, I don’t suppose you know anything about Swedish cities, Martha?”

“Not much.”

Ava frowns and moves on to the Sudoku section. 

“This is boring,” she says. 

“Take a nap,” Sara suggests.

“Well, one of us has to be alert,” Ava snaps. 

Sara rolls her eyes. “Relax, babe.”

The term of endearment rolls off Sara’s tongue. Ava turns a shade redder and angrier. 

“Is that right, honey?” Ava growls. Her teeth are gritted. 

Sara puts her hand on Ava’s leg and bats her eyelashes. She can feel the warmth of Ava’s skin through her pants. 

“Mhmm,” she says. She leans her head on Ava’s shoulder. Ava freezes for a few seconds, but she relaxes and puts her arm around Sara. 

Sara cuddles into her. Part of her just wants to keep pushing Ava and testing her limits until something breaks. Part of her enjoys pretending to be Martha, a regular lady travelling with her girlfriend. 

Every remaining cell in her body is telling her to stop the charade where she pretends to not be ridiculously attracted to Ava, but Sara just burrows deeper into Ava’s side and tells herself that it’s all for the act. She can’t afford to be distracted. 

Sara lets her eyes shut. 

 

“Martha,” Ava is saying gently. “We’re getting off the bus to stay at a hotel for the night.”

“Oh,” Sara says. She sits up and moves her head off of Ava. She’s usually a light sleeper, used to enemy agents surprising her at two in the morning. “How long was I…”

“Four and a half hours,” Ava tells her. She helps Sara with her bag, and Sara could swear she smiles.

They walk a few blocks to the hotel. Sara pushes for the elevator and lets Ava go first. 

Sara throws herself down on the hotel bed as soon as she steps through the door. She didn’t pack anything other than equipment and one change of clothes, so she just lies down in her traveling suit. 

“There’s only one bed,” Ava says. “I’ll just…”

She gestures to the couch. Sara rolls her eyes.

“Eloise, it’s fine. We’re adults,” she says. She waves her arms and hopes Ava gets the message that they’re supposed to be dating.

Ava frowns and takes her shoes off. She sits on the other side of the bed with her back to Sara. Sara sighs and sits up. 

“After this is over, there’s some stuff I’d like to discuss with you,” Sara whispers.

Ava turns around and looks at Sara. She raises her eyebrows and frowns like she’s asking Sara if they’ll survive.

Sara nods. “I promise,” she mouths.

Ava doesn’t look hopeful, but she forces a smile. “Yeah, I have a few things I need to say to you too.”

“We don’t have to say anything right now,” Sara tells her. “We should just get some rest.”

“Yeah,” Ava agrees, peeling her shirt off. Sara looks over at her back. Ava has a pattern of scars down the right of her spine. Sara reaches out and touches one of them with her thumb. Ava’s skin feels like it’s burning at Sara’s touch.

“What are you doing?” Ava asks quietly. 

“I don’t have a clue,” Sara says. Ava turns around. Her mouth moves like she’s trying to come up with another question, but she gives up. Sara watches every movement of her tongue. 

Ava stands up and brushes her hair. It’s such a regular activity that Sara can’t help but smile. Sara stands up and starts braiding it down Ava’s back. Ava turns around and stares at Sara. She looks back, her hand still on Ava’s bare shoulder. Neither of them makes a move.

“So…” Sara says.

She’s not sure who moves first, but Ava is facing her with her tongue halfway down Sara’s throat before she can say anything else. Sara grunts and clutches at Ava’s back, bringing their torsos closer together. Ava is already panting, and Sara’s pretty sure she is too. Neither of them is making any pretense of gentleness. Sara feels Ava’s nails pressing into her hip and Ava’s teeth biting her lower lip.

Sara jumps up without breaking the lip-lock. Ava grabs her legs and hoists them so she’s lifting Sara and pressing her against the wall. Ava pulls back just a little to pull the neckline of Sara’s shirt down for access to her throat. Ava runs her thumb along the side and repeats the motion with her tongue. Sara mewls. Her hips jolt forward. Ava makes eye contact and does it again.

Sara can feel the marks forming on her neck. She’ll look absolutely wrecked in the morning, but she can’t care enough to stop Ava, especially when she looks down. 

Ava is wearing a plain bra. Sara wonders if it’s NFW assigned, but she quickly concludes that it doesn’t matter. Sara can feel herself salivate. 

“Can we…” Sara asks, and Ava nods. She easily carries Sara to the hotel bed they had been so reluctant to share and sets her down with her legs dangling off the side. Ava moves closer so she’s standing between Sara’s open legs and kisses her again. Sara grabs one side of her face and uses the other to drag Ava on top of her. 

Ava’s weight is solid and warm, and Sara almost wants to just stay like that forever. Maybe she would, if she and Ava didn’t have the world to save. Sara supposes fucking her superior agent isn’t the most helpful thing she could be doing, but she doesn’t think she can function at all with all the tension between her and Ava. She can’t think of stopping, not when Ava’s abs look delicious and she’s making quiet gasps.

Sara flips Ava onto her back and keeps kissing her. Ava swears quietly.

“Damn it, Lanc-Martha. Should have known you couldn’t stand to just lie there.” 

Sara doesn’t say anything. She squats back and yanks her shirt off. Ava is looking up at her with her mouth slightly open. Sara would wink under normal circumstances, but she can’t slow down to think about what she’s doing. She leans forward, and Ava reaches behind her to unclasp her bra. Sara discards it. Ava starts to stare again, but this time she flips Sara back onto her back. 

“Oh, is this how we’re playing it?” Sara huffs. Ava growls and pushes at her thighs. Sara takes the cue and spreads them. Ava moves back to mouthing at Sara’s neck, but this time, she doesn’t stop. Some of Ava’s hair is starting to fall out of her bun. Sara resists the urge to push it behind her ear.

Ava’s hand brushes against Sara’s belt buckle and looks up at her. Sara nods. Ava rips it down in one motion. 

Sara throws her head back and gasps again. It’s going to be a long night.

 

 

Ava opens her eyes. Sara is sprawled across the bed from her. She looks wrecked. Ava winces when her eyes pass over the bruises starting on Sara’s throat and extending down to where she’s covered by the sheet. Her hair is tangled, and Ava wants nothing more than to brush it clear of her beautiful face. 

Ava shakes her head. She can’t have feelings for a fellow agent, not with so much at stake. It was pretty obvious that Sara just wanted a quick fuck to relieve some tension. She can never know how much more Ava wants than just the noise of Sara crying out or the feeling of Sara’s hands in her hair.

She’d definitely imagined being with Sara before, but her fantasies had always involved old records and slow kisses. It would never have been realistic, but it was a nice thought. 

Ava wants to wake up next to Sara knowing that they’ll make it to the next day. She wants to have enough time to learn every inch of her, and take her to the movies or restaurants or wherever Sara might want to go. 

She swallows everything she’s feeling. At best, her relationship with Sara is something she can hope to happen maybe someday. That’s all Ava’s ever going to get with the NFW out for blood, or as long as they’re agents. 

Ava sighs and pulls the blanket up to Sara’s neck.


	13. XII.

“Almost there,” Sara says. She doesn’t meet Ava’s eyes. Neither of them know exactly what will happen when they get there. Neither of them acknowledge the previous night. 

Sara tries to think through her plan. She knows she has to meet up with the rest of her team. At some point, they’ll have to find White Elephant and infiltrate the system without the program finding a way to stop them. Then she’ll have to convince it to shut itself off or self-destruct. 

She stops the bicycle and steps off. Ava hides hers under a pile of wood. They cover the remaining mile on foot and find Martin in a bunker. 

“Thank goodness. Nate and Ray are very unruly. Wally and Jackson have only slightly managed to calm them down.”

“Okay. Who are we still waiting on?” 

“Snart and Mick.”

“Uh…” Ava interrupts.

“That’s Cold and Heatwave.”

“Right,” Ava says. 

“We have some info of the facility. Wally and Jackson are looking to try to find weaknesses.”

“How’d they get it?”

“They found somebody else trying to break in. They have him in a warehouse. He knows stuff too. Won’t say how,” Amaya explains.

“How do we know if any of it’s true?”

“If it’s not true, then we have zero leads. So we’re assuming it’s true.”

Sara finds Wally and Jax huddled over a giant paper sketch of what they think the first floor looks like. 

“Canary,” Wally says quietly. 

“That’s me. What have you got so far, assuming your guy is right?”

“You mean me?” says a man. He’s tied down to a chair. He doesn’t look particularly concerned, considering his situation. 

“Yeah. What do you know?”

“There aren’t very many human guards, so those won’t be a problem, but White Elephant doesn’t need many human guards. The whole facility is arranged in a sort of set of concentric circles. The outer one has basic maintenance supplies, the second one has surveillance monitors, third is auxiliary programming, and the center is a the core program. It looks like it can seal every room and flood some kind of killer gas into it. And if it finds you, it will fuck you up.”

“Are there cameras and mics in every room?”

“Yes. There’s barely a square foot that isn’t covered by two cams.”

“Okay. What do they have, apart from cams?”

“Motion detectors, lasers, keypads, thermal cameras.” 

 

Sara is pretty sure she can make the mics lose track of them by playing really loud music. They’ll have to figure something else out for the cameras.

“How did you supposedly get this info?”

“Can’t say, love,” the man says. “Can I have a cigarette?”

“No. If we had more detailed plans for each room, maybe we could figure out where the furniture is and work around that, but those would be even harder to come by and probably not even recorded.” Sara gestures to Zari to walk with her to a different barn, out of the captive’s earshot. “What about the input feeds? Are those going to be hackable, even if the core programming isn’t?”

“I’d guess so,” Zari says. “Thing has to monitor a sizeable chunk of the world. It can’t protect every single phone line.”

“If we could hack White Elephant, we’d be able to watch the whole world,” Sara says. She’s understanding more than ever why it’s so scary. “It’s still got to be protected.”

“When I built it, I tried my best to make it secure, but that meant I made sure there were individual firewalls rather than one database. It made everything more complicated to not have everything protected the same way, but I figured it was worth it to ensure that even if one data set was compromised, the others would be safe. That also means one set of cameras isn’t going to be that hard to hack, but the cameras in this facility are bound to be routed to the inner brain of the machine. That’s the part that protects itself, and it’s higher priority than anything else.”

“It considers itself more important than the rest of the world?”

“Its logic states that it is, yes.”

“Okay, well, that’s messed up,” Ava says. “So could you get in so we can view the cameras?”

“Possibly, but we’d only be able to see rooms if we’ve planted cables in them.”

“How many people have access?”

“A few engineers.”

“And it can see and hear all over the base. Can’t we just break through the first door and then talk to it?”

“It’s programmed to only alter its core code based on stimuli from within the area of the facility containing the core programming, as a security measure. I coded that part.”

“So we have to break through however many layers to even talk to it?”

“Yes. Since it is a giant facility, there’s bound to be a few cameras with dead batteries. If we can find one close to the wall, we can break through the first circle.”

“What then?”

“Then we find a way into the next one room over. If we can bring the cameras down room by room, we can make it through layer by layer.”

“That’ll take forever. Surely it’ll figure something’s up.”

“There’s no way to take every camera out at once. We don’t have any other options. We have to find a blindspot, use it to break in, and create a blindspot in the next room. It should theoretically be possible. I looked at some records of supplies it ordered delivered here, and all the cameras are sweepers. That means they move around. If we can move with them, we can avoid detection.”

“But if it finds out what room we’re in, it can shut it off and pump gas into it?”

“Yeah,” Zari says. “I remember working on it. We also made it so it could suck the oxygen from each room in case of a fire or something, but that could also serve as a way to kill.”

Sara starts thinking. She writes out a list of supplies they’ll need and splits it into parts. She hands one list to Stein and one to Ray.

“I need you both to work on obtaining these. On the down-low, obviously. Ava, with me. I have part of a plan. I need you to run it through with me. Oh, and someone, let John go.”

"Wait, you know that guy?" Nate grumbles. 

 

 

“It’s never going to work,” Ava says. She looks over the mess of papers Sara had laid out for her. Each of them details the role of one of their team members. 

“It’s worth a try.”

“There’s too many variables we can’t control. Anything could go wrong.”

“It’s our only option.”

“We’re doing this on the word of a disaster of a man who hasn’t stopped asking for a light since we found him.”

“It’s okay. I trust him.”

“He an agent?”

“An associate. He knows what he’s doing.”

“If you say so,” Ava says grumpily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so ... it's been a while. It has literally been a year since I uploaded the first chapter of this fic. it's also been a few months since I updated, but I'm back! I just kind of went on hiatus at the same time Legends did oooops. I thought about abandoning this work, but I figured at this point I might as well finish it, so expect another chapter soon, hopefully.


End file.
